Columbia News (BETA)

Joel Sawyer, Gov. Mark Sanford’s communications director, announced Friday he will leave his $65,000-per-year post Aug. 5 to pursue a job as an independent communications consultant.

AGAPE WORSHIP CENTER: Vacation Bible School, 6:15 p.m. Monday through Friday, 424 Lee Road. (803) 454-2373; www.agapeworship.org BETHLEHEM BAPTIST CHURCH: Fellowship facility dedication and prayer and praise service, 7 p.m. Wednesday; fellowship and dinner, 7 p.m. Friday. Tickets may be purchased at the church office 10 a.m.-2:30 p.m. weekdays. Dedication service, 4 p.m. July 26. Guest speaker ...

A drunken driving charge against longtime 5th Circuit Solicitor Barney Giese has been dismissed, but he pleaded guilty Friday to two lesser offenses stemming from a June 29 traffic stop in Charleston.

Lake Murray might drop significantly as often as every third winter to keep it healthy. South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. is looking at lowering the water as much as eight feet below its normal high.

Gov. Mark Sanford, who once criticized other state officials for costly travel, charged South Carolina more than $37,600 for one first-class and four business-class flights overseas since November 2005, expense records show.

Friday the Department of Disabilities and Special Needs made cuts to a program that affects nearly 6,000 of the state's most vulnerable citizens.

We're learning more about a Richland County magistrate's ruling on underage drinking.

A Columbia woman found a giant snake in her yard, but it may not be the last time one shows up in the woman's neighborhood.

A Columbia mail carrier was honored for something he did on the job. While on his normal route, he noticed something that seemed strange. And when he acted, he saved a woman's life.

A Richland County thief told someone from whom he was stealing he was doing it because he got laid off.

June unemployment rates for The T&D Region shattered all-time highs that have stood since county-by-county record keeping began.

THE ISSUE: Retirement OUR OPINION: Impact of recession will keep many seniors in the work force – with uncertain impact

Orangeburg County officers are looking for a gunman after a 22-year-old Cordova man was found shot to death Thursday night inside a car on Drag Strip Road.

NEW YORK (AP) — Walter Cronkite, the premier TV anchorman of the networks’ golden age who reported a tumultuous time with reassuring authority and came to be called “the most trusted man in America,” has died. He was 92.

Nearly 100 children and adults shared laughs at Fish the Magish’s first performance on Friday at the Orangeburg County Library. Mike Fisher, who goes by Fish the Magish when on stage said the most enjoyable part of his job is observing the faces of children as he attempts to make them laugh and performs magic tricks.

CBS News will honor Walter Cronkite with the primetime special THAT'S THE WAY IT WAS: REMEMBERING WALTER CRONKITE to be broadcast Sunday night at 7pm on WLTX-TV.

Columbia (WLTX) - It's not just our goal to provide you with the news, but to also make a difference in our community. You've helped us do that in a big way in our first Hero Central Food Drive.

NEW YORK (CBS, AP) -- A CBS executive says retired CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite, "the most trusted man in America," has died at his home in New York. He was 92.

Columbia (WLTX) - Columbia police have identified a new suspect in the killing of a woman that took place back in May.

Sumter (WLTX) - Sumter County Sheriff Anthony Dennis says one of his deputies was fired after the man was charged with giving alcohol to minors.

Hammond School's trash was Uganda Royal School and Orphanage's treasure. When rising Hammond senior Avery Acuff, 17, committed to a three- week mission trip to the orphanage, located in the village of Kiwawah, Hammond donated the entire contents of its lost and found clothing to her.

Columbian Paul Redfern and his plane, the Port of Brunswick, left Sea Island, Georgia, to fly nonstop to Brazil 82 years ago. The plane and Redfern disappeared somewhere in South America and were never heard from again.

Boykin, South Carolina, formerly a small farming community at the northeastern end of the COWASEE Basin, a few miles south of Camden, has "reinvented itself" as they say. Starting in the early 1980s the "broom lady," Susan Simpson, moved her enterprise from Hagood to an old restored settler's house, now listed on the National Register, in Boykin right off Highway 261.

A long lost Civil War bridge has been discovered. While clearing some newly purchased property along the Broad River in Columbia, David Brinkman, the owner, discovered evidence of an old bridge abutment.

Editor's Note: The Columbia Star published this book promotion November 11, 2005. The movie "Public Enemies" about Melvin Purvis search for John Dillinger is currently playing.

Thanks in part to a $50,000 grant from syndicated talk show host and mega-star Oprah Winfrey, 14 students from Scott’s Branch Middle School got the trip of a lifetime to Washington D.C. and the Maryland city of Baltimore.

Youth from some Clarendon churches have partnered with each other and adults from their churches for a week of hands on work in the county.

When the Clarendon County Council passed their budget ordinance at their June 8 meeting, included in the budget were allocations to agencies in the county.

Media Madness would love to say “we told you so,” but in fact the only people we told about our early prediction that Gov. Mark Sanford would ride out the storm over his affair — “if he makes it seven days, he makes it,” were our exact words — were a few friends and co-workers.

Thank God for … Alaska? No, this is not about how Gov. Mark “I Need to Get Out of the Bubble of State Politics” Sanford compares to Sarah “I’m Quitting My Job to Save the State Money” Palin; nor any of many categories in which Mississippi has ranked last — next to South Carolina.

Ups and downs for Columbia’s Main Street are up at the moment, overall. HealthPort, a health care information technology company based in Atlanta, plans to move 140 employees from Farrow Road to 1401 Main beginning in September.

In the Columbia hip-hop scene at the turn of the new millennium, you would have been hard-pressed to find a more energetic and talented emcee than Lyrikal Buddah.

University of South Carolina archaeologist Al Goodyear and the paradigm-shifting finds from his archeological site in Allendale County are getting the star treatment in an hour-long feature on the Topper site tonight (Wed., July 15) on PBS from 8 to 9 p.m.

Sarah Levin doesn't expect any Camp Broadway students to know how to sing, dance or act. She and her interns and camp counselors teach the cast members how to do those things.

A spate of last-week filings for Brunswick County municipal elections have saved this election season from the doldrums and put at least some opposition in races for all southwestern Brunswick towns except Ocean Isle Beach.

Aldora B. Ashbaugh Doris C. Blair Andrew Janovitz James W. Johnston David Mayo Liston L. Perritt Jesse D. Poston Lester A. Steiner

other two located in the Upstate, said Becky Walton with the S.C. Department of Agriculture. "It's a well-kept secret in Horry County, or it was," said Maxine Edwards, who embarked on her farming career when she retired after 30 years as a high school math teacher in Charlotte and 12 years in North Myrtle Beach.

The Myrtle Beach Fire Department will play the Myrtle Beach Police Department in the annual Guns-n-Hoses softball game starting at 2:30 p.m. Sunday at BB&T Coastal Field to raise money for the local Autism Foundation.

Famed CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite has died at the age of 92.

At least 10 families have been displaced by a fire at a Piedmont apartment complex.

New figures released by officials on Friday shows that the June unemployment rate in the Carolinas didnt change much.

Two recent graduates of Dorman High School have started a petition asking administrators to end religious messages during graduation.

Deputies say that a man shot his drunken father on Thursday night after his father put a knife to the neck of his mother.

Local environmentalists are urging Beaufort County residents to oppose plans for a shopping center o

Though there are only two days left, the 54th annual Beaufort Water Festival showed no signs of slow

Shoreline erosion at Hunting Island State Park rendered portions of Cabin Road impassable and prompt

A racial discrimination complaint filed by a Bluffton developer was rebuffed by the U.S. Department

Nathan Cooper crouched low as he carefully loaded two stones onto his homemade catapult. He took a d